So many times I’ve heard my friends say that they struggle when they are talking with their friends and family and they want to tell them how much God loves them. They have heard there are so many things which we need to get right .
They have this big list of things which if they don’t get them in the right order they feel that the contract will not be valid, and if it’s not right their friend will not understand, or they might make a mistake and then it’s all our fault because we haven’t done the work correctly. Jesus never spoke about a list of things which we needed to get right. In fact He went out of His way to criticise the scholars and in Matt 23:13 said “I’ve had it with you! You’re hopeless, you religion scholars, you Pharisees! Frauds! Your lives are roadblocks to God’s kingdom. You refuse to enter, and won’t let anyone else in either. I’ll be blunt with you – this line of thinking is all a big lie just to confuse you and scare you away from talking openly with your friends and family. To be honest with you none of your friends will ever be interested in legal details and that is what these lists have become.
So how did Jesus share? One thing I’ve been paying attention to is that Jesus never invited a perfect person to follow him. All of the disciples were a work in process.
There were fishermen (some of them might have been the owners of the boats), tax collectors, political activists (also known as a zealot), and one of them was a thief who helped himself from the money bag. None of them were perfect, but Jesus specifically said to Andrew and Peter in Matthew 4 to follow Him and Jesus would make them “fishers of men”.
Jesus walked with these people every day, talking and sharing with them, and they were watching Him every day, and sometimes even arguing trying to work out what was right. In Luke 9 & 22 we find them arguing twice about who was the greatest in the group, but Jesus tells them both times that they should be as servants, and as a child serving all others.
Jesus showed that He came to serve all, that they might see a Father who loves and cares for them.
None of us are perfect and we are all continually learning every day of our lives. This is both before and after we make any commitment to follow Jesus. We watch, we listen, we work it out over a period of time, we ask more questions, and at some point we realise that Jesus really is the Son of God. Some of the disciples worked this out just before Jesus was about to be crucified on the cross, and I’m sure some of the other disciples only worked it out after they saw Him raised from the dead and walking amongst them in power. All of us learn at different speeds and God loves us for our differences.
Happy New Month!
